Contrary to his worries, telling her about this seemed to be having a calming effect. He’d never spoken of it before, not even to Hester. But talking to Miranda felt so natural, so unforced, so cathartic. He’d wonder why it felt like that later, but a small part of him hoped he might be exorcising his nightmares by so doing.
“Were you involved in an infantry square?” she asked.
She was a natural horsewoman, her position elegant but relaxed, and her horse was at one with her, his long stride as relaxed as his rider. Unlike poor Lochinvar who must be wondering why he was being ridden by such a fidget.
“I was,” he said. “As regimental surgeon. I would have been at the battlefield hospital at Mont-St-Jean, but the medic who should have been in a square was wounded early on, so I volunteered to go out in his place. My job was to patch up the wounded and send them back into the front line of the square. So they could keep on fighting.” He hesitated. “Most didn’t make it back out there, though. The dead were piling up. I was doing my best.” He faltered and took a deep steadying breath. Her proximity, and her gentle voice and expression, were soothing.
“A lucky mortar shot from the French landed in the center of our square. The enemy cavalry had so far had little to back them up. But this one landed only feet from me.” He took another breath andclenched his free hand into a fist, keeping his gaze fixed on her lovely, compassionate face. “The last thing I remember is being thrown through the air into the mud and blood. It was probably a good thing I was knocked unconscious. The next thing I knew it was several days after the battle had been won, and I was in a hospital bed in Brussels with two surgeons, one of whom was a friend, arguing about whether to take my leg off below or above my knee.”
She was close enough to reach out a hand and lay it on his arm. A wave of heat shivered up his body at her touch. “But you still have both your legs, don’t you?”
He nodded, a grim smile curving his lips as he tried hard not to think about the dainty, comforting hand resting on his arm. “You think waking up and hearing that conversation didn’t inspire me to insist they did neither?” He shook his head. “I told them I’d rather die of an infection than lose my leg. I must have been insistent enough, because when I woke again I still had both legs. Had to check with my hands, but there they were.” He gave her a swift grin. “It hurt like hell though, and still does from time to time. My back too.”
Best not to tell her it hurt all of the time. Especially since he’d weaned himself off the laudanum dependency.
“And it was shrapnel from the mortar?”
He nodded again. “It was. As luck would have it, I was turned away from where the mortar hit. It landed in mud, and…bodies…which reduced the blast. It took me down my right-hand side. My leg, my back, and a nasty blow to the back of my head.” He put his hand up to where the scar lay under his hair. “You might say I was the luckiest soldier in the British army that day.”
She squeezed his arm, sending more glorious shivers through his body. “I’m very glad you were so lucky.”
He met her eyes for a long moment before letting them drop to her hand on his arm. A warm feeling of what might be happiness washed over him. For the first time since he’d woken up in hospital itdawned on him that he, too, might be glad luck had chosen him that day. He pushed the images of mangled bodies out of his head. He wouldn’t let them mar this beautiful day riding out with a beautiful woman.
